Hobby Update; Ulfhednars!

Hi again folks. A quick hobby update from me. Finally got round to finishing my berserker (or Ulfhednars, I thought I’d use the fancy word in the title) unit for my SAGA viking warband. I was gifted these last September along with a few other Gripping Beast viking essentials from fellow WC member Iain.

Crazed viking warriors in wolf and bear skins. Intoxicated with hallucinogenics and let loose into battle!

The models were an absolute joy to paint. There’s something about metal miniatures that I can’t quite put my finger on. The weight of the mini in your hand? The charming hand sculpt? I would see myself as a fairly neo-hobbyist having only been getting into tabletops games the last 5 years. So there’s something of an old skool buzz I guess from painting metal.

I enjoy free handing my shield designs and this is one I stole directly from The World Wide Web. Was a bit worried afterwards though on it’s similarity to a certain fascist symbol!

Assembly was simple enough, the majority of the model is a single cast with only needing to attach the shield and weapon. The blister pack came with a dane axe, two swords and two spears. I ditched the spears for two reasons; one I could not be bothered to drill and safely secure the fragile weapons into place and two spears don’t come across as particularly intimidating enough weapons for a berserker. So I used the dane axe, two swords and a plastic axe from my bitz box.

I had originally painted all my shields grey with the idea of giving them the same pattern. I soon ditched that idea though and painted each shield differently. Though you can still see the grey base in 3 of 4!

Painting, I primed all the models white. No reason in particularly to be honest. I had prior never primed white before and so for the sheer thrill and ecstasy of it I turned my habit on it’s head. I will say though that I found it so much easier to see the detail of the model in white, so perhaps it’ll be the new norm? I used a variety of Citadel, Army Painter and Vallejo paints. I’m not all that sycophantic over my paints I kinda just use whatever!

This guy has purple pants because why not?My favorite model and pose of the four.

So there we are. Four nasty dudes ready to steal some Christian gold and burn a Saxon village or two. Up next on my desk is some more Hearthguard cavalry for my Carolingian warband. Oh! And I also received recently in the post my Warlord Games order of more Bolt Action Germans, so there’s that to come up soon also.

Till next time, wash your hands, stay away from old people and try be a nice Human.